Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives, Tribe: Do you need to be frivolous to be fab?

 

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But more importantly, why do seemingly ‘light-hearted’ fiction or reality shows on OTT platforms, usually feature women wallowing in first-world problems? Does it feed into our simultaneous love and hatred for the rich and famous? Or do such shows appeal to our deep-rooted misogyny by fuelling stereotypes about women?

I am pretty sure if you have read up to this point, a part of your brain is saying, relax lady, they are supposed to be silly time-pass shows. There were TV programs like Splitsvilla and Roadies earlier which were also filled with unnecessary drama and forced controversies. There are international shows like Real Housewives or Selling Sunset that are similar and similarly successful. But the trouble with shows like The Tribe or Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives is addition to magnifying clichés about women, they are also written and created from a completely internalised male gaze. So the women across age groups huddle in groups or individually in piece-to-camera segments and pass snide remarks about each other while wearing a full face of makeup and/or a plunging neckline. The young girls in The Tribe especially, are constantly objectified by their phone cameras, the cameras of those filming their social media content and those of the show.

Then there is the casual sexism that for some reason gets passed off as humour or just good old snark. Whether it is Alanna’s father commenting on her clothes and asking her if she forgot to wear a shirt; Jaaved Jaaferi ridiculing influencers with his sons, laughing along when his daughter aims to become one; or the women discussing how their husbands feel special when their wives fast all day for them, clearly nothing much has changed over the decades in Indian households. Or so we are made to believe. Karan Johar, who has produced both shows, makes special appearances in Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives Season 3, while serial entrepreneur Hardik Zaveri plays the man bringing the women together in The Tribe. Both Karan and Hardik effortlessly mansplain to the women about how they should handle their friendships, their mental health and personal equations with the other women on the show.

The determination to keep things superficial limits the potential of both shows. I would have loved to see how these young girls managed to get the thousands of followers that they have. What was the plan, and how did they develop their personal brand? It’s great to see Neelam open up about her failed first marriage or Maheep talk about her struggle with diabetes. But these moments appear randomly, almost as if add a dash of authentic feeling before returning to the flimsy.

 

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After spending decades if not centuries demanding to be taken seriously and treated as equals, why are we producing content in 2024 where we are encouraged to laugh and sneer as a group of women struggle to have a single intelligent conversation? Why are they put in a room with Saif Ali Khan who reads from The Tale of Two Cities while none of the other women can say a word about a single book they have read? None of the ladies wants to join a book club and they laugh when one of them fumbles while talking about a book she has read. I almost wanted to stand up and clap when Shalini Passi, an art collector from Delhi, seemingly subverted the tone of the show and asked Kalyani Saha Chawla and Riddhima Kapoor Sahni, if the only thing seven women could do was dissect each other’s behaviour. The way Shalini is bullied and mocked throughout the show is excessive even by reality show standards. How she agreed to sound effects of a cat meowing while she was speaking or a background score that constantly informs audiences to laugh at her, is beyond me.

Like I said in my disclaimer, not all films, shows or pieces of content have to be deathly serious or intellectually stimulating. Quite like every meal can’t be perfectly nutritious or fine dining. But presenting women as shallow, self-absorbed, mean and outright ridiculous to generate a few laughs or mining ‘content’ from women embarrassing themselves inadvertently or in scripted scenarios is far from fabulous.